38 | Summer 2016any people have high blood pressure (HBP) foryears without knowing it. Generally, there are nosymptoms, but when HBP goes untreated, itdamages arteries and vital organs throughout your body.

That’s why it is often called the “silent killer.”People often make the mistake of assuming symptomswill alert them to their high blood pressure. However, HBPcan only be diagnosed by using a device to measure yourblood pressure. Not that long ago, this meant going to yourdoctor or a clinic and having a reading taken by a nurseor other healthcare professional. But today there areaccurate BP monitors at your local pharmacy andthere are monitors you can buy to measure yourblood pressure at home.

Choosing a Monitor

The American Heart Association recommends anautomatic, cuff-style, bicep (upper-arm) monitor. Askyour healthcare professional for advice in selectingand using one at home. Wrist and finger monitors are notrecommended because they yield less reliable readings.he AHA guidelines currently recommend a systolicpressure of less than 140 millimeters of mercury formost adults with high blood pressure. But doctorssay new findings presented at the American Heart AssociationScientific Sessions 2015 support a steeper goal of 120 — areduction that could translate into doctors putting millions moreAmericans with high blood pressure on additional medication.

The study found that hitting the lower 120 target reduced
the risk of dying from cardiovascular causes by 43 percent.

The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, or SPRINT,
included more than 9,300 people with high blood pressure
who were age 50 and older and had at least one other risk
factor for heart disease and stroke. The patients were followed
for a median of more than three years, much shorter than
expected because investigators stopped the trial early after
seeing the striking results.

Using medications to lower systolic blood pressure to
around 120 reduced the risk of having or dying from a heart
attack, stroke or heart failure by a quarter, compared with
lowering it to the previously recommended target of less than

140. During the study, 243 patients in the intensive treatmentgroup had a so-called event versus 319 patients in thestandard treatment group.

When investigators looked only at deaths caused by heart
disease and stroke, the nation’s No. 1 and No. 5 killers, the
risk of dying fell by 43 percent in the more aggressively treated
group, with 37 deaths in the intensive therapy group and 65
deaths in the standard therapy group.

Blood pressure medications are relatively affordable —
nearly all are available as low-cost generics — meaning that
more doses won’t burden patients with higher bills. Nor did
researchers find that giving patients more drugs increases the
risk of most serious side effects.

“This is likely the most important blood pressure study in thepast 40 years,” said Daniel Jones, M.D., interim chairman of thedepartment of medicine at the University of Mississippi MedicalCenter, who was not involved in the study. “It’s one that shouldand will change the practice of treating high blood pressurearound the world.”High blood pressure contributed to more than 405,000U.S. deaths in 2013. Globally, the World Health Organizationestimates it causes 7.5 million deaths.